


In Motion

by RC_McLachlan



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Battle of Five Armies Fix-It, Everybody Lives, M/M, Self-Indulgent, Star metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-28
Updated: 2014-03-28
Packaged: 2018-01-17 08:39:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1381105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RC_McLachlan/pseuds/RC_McLachlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>We are each of us but a tiny moment, and then we are gone. Until then, you mustn't stand still—You must learn to move in this world, else you will be nothing but a stone in the next, and the stars will rush past you.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Motion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Etharei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etharei/gifts).



> This story is overdue by, oh, about a **year**. It was meant to be a birthday gift for Etharei last spring. Better late than never, I s'pose.
> 
> Rei, this self-indulgent, utterly unbeta'd piece is for you. I hope you enjoy it.

There is a spot—if one were so inclined to find it—in Old Seger's field where one can look into the sky and see a river of stars.

It hadn't been a place Bilbo visited often, not since the days when he was but a fauntling and his mother's laugh lingered in his hair. She would bring him there as the sun set behind the hills, leaving behind the comforts of Bag End, kissing her husband _goodbye-for-now_ and tucking a small pouch of sweets into a basket. They would walk quietly, waving to lads and lasses returning home from a good day's work, and steal into the trees— _a shortcut, my love, not to worry_ , _for there is nothing to fear from these particular trees_ —to find the wild-grown path that led to the field. Despite the lack of a marker or familiar stone to act as a guide, his mother always found the place. A quilt would then be spread over bent and trampled stalks, and together they would suck on candied prunes and sugar tarts as, above them, a waterfall of diamonds and rubies and yellow topaz poured into the inky blue-black of the night.

_Look up, dearest. Does it not look like the stream we play in during the summer? How beautiful is the world, how exquisite. But it is not for us to keep, only to admire. All of us are too small to know it now—not just hobbits, but all who live in this Middle Earth. Never forget your place in this life, my love; we are each of us but a tiny moment, and then we are gone. Until then, you mustn't stand still—you may be a Baggins, but you are also a Took! You must learn to move in this world, else you will be nothing but a stone in the next, and the stars will rush past you._

He thinks of that spot in Old Seger's field now as he stands at Erebor's rampart, where his own moment would have passed rather quickly with a toss to the rocks below.

Bilbo is just able to see over to where battle had raged hours earlier. The earth is covered in a river of death—men, elves, and dwarves all, awash in cracked crimson and littered weaponry. He sees the survivors, dressed in finery and worn leather, moving amongst the dead, carrying firelight and the guilt of those left behind to finish their time here until the aches of old age claim them.

 _Enough death_ , he thinks, and turns his attention back upward, where glittering brushstrokes streak the sky, as beautiful and untouchable as they were through his mother's eyes all those years ago. There is nothing in this world that is their equal—not even the Arkenstone.

A shudder overtakes him and he closes his eyes, wishing for but the length of a breath that he were back on his front stoop, Old Toby in his lungs, wishing Gandalf a good morning and turning him from his doorstep as if the wizard had been, indeed, selling buttons. To have stayed in his family home and remained still; to never have seen the wilds beyond the Shire; to have never known peace found in sharp, blue eyes; to have met the end of his own moment quietly and become a rock around which the stars whirled—it would have been a luxury, despite what his mother believed. Hobbits are not known for _moving_. They are not known for very much at all.

_So, this is the hobbit._

Bilbo opens his eyes and looks down to regard his own hands. Small, not very strong, and the calluses are not those brought about by tilling gardens. His fingers well remember the bite of Sting's hilt, how the smooth leather rubs at the webbing between his thumb and forefinger; there are welts and bruises on his skin, reminders of how he gripped his blade so tightly. His palms easily recall the scratch of elven architecture, the walls and stone he used to guide his way around lords and ladies, around the Mirkwood King, under the guise of a simple trick. The spaces in between his fingers know the feel of dark hair slipping through, softer than it had any right to be.

Hobbit hands are not meant to know such things. They are meant to know rakes and shovels, the long, curved necks of pipes, the fragile ears of teacups and the bent spines of books.

They are not meant to know what his hands know. Hobbits are not meant to move as he has moved.

Bilbo slides down until he sits back against the wall, lightly pressing the ache in the back of his head to cool stone. Exhaling, he tilts his head back, up, to look at the river once more.

How is he meant to return to the Shire and expect it to hold any joy for him now? There is no conceivable way he can go back to the used-to-be, and hold his pipe in unfamiliar hands while they long for the hilt of a sword, and sleep in a long-forgotten bed while dreaming of being in another. To spend the rest of his life turning, reaching for hands that are not there… it is unthinkable. It is a madness worse than any gold fever, to go back to his life of stillness and know what true movement is.

He huffs a laugh, even as his eyes burn, and the river above blurs and shifts as if it were truly moving.

_And I will let you go at that—and may we never meet again!_

"Is this what you meant when you told me never to stand still?" Bilbo whispers, blinking hard to clear his eyes of such unhappy thoughts. They slip down his cheeks, each one a casual reminder of his rather superb failures.

The stars offer no comfort, no solace, and instead continue to rush by him. Beyond where he sits comes the sound of approaching footsteps. It is time, then, to return to a life of stillness.

"You called me 'burglar', Gandalf, and I attempted to steal the heart of a king." He looks away from the stars, head bowed, and gathers the pieces of his own heart. Perhaps he will bury them in his garden.  "What a ham-fisted thief I turned out to be."

He rises to his feet and turns to meet the wizard. "I am ready to g—"

The astonishment on the battle-weary face of Thorin Oakenshield is made brilliant by the wash of starlight. Bilbo straightens and drops his hands to his sides, fists clenched.

"Ah."

Thorin's lips part around nothing, lips chapped and bloodied with war and victory. He looks every bit the king he has always been—whether sipping broth at Bilbo's table or commanding an army—and yet not. Standing before Bilbo, he simply looks… tired. He looks like the dwarf with whom Bilbo shared Beorn's mead, speaking in comfortable whispers and silences, glances and awkward humor; gentle, fumbling touches and the sweet-soaked press of mouths. He looks the way he did when Bilbo met his gaze without fear and said, _All the way down, O king, would I follow you._

"I—" Thorin rasps, and Bilbo feels every star in every sky hurry past him as he bends at the waist in what must be the poorest of bows. "No, do not—"

"Your highness." His cheeks are ruddy with spent sorrow and humiliation; between them, the words linger.

A horrible silence descends, and then Thorin—always the braver of them—ventures, "I did not expect to find you here."

Unbidden, anger rises in Bilbo, a shining river of it that threatens to wash him away, and he straightens, forces himself to look the King Under The Mountain in the eye. "I know I have overstayed my welcome, _your_ _majesty_. I only meant to rest for a bit before departing. Please grant me this small mercy, lest you again consider throwing me over the wall."

Outrage colors Thorin's cheeks a deep red, more pigmented than any ruby to be dug from the guts of the mountain. "I would nev—" He pauses, and then swallows down his indignation. "That… is not my intention."

Bilbo finds no kind reply on his tongue and so turns his back and says nothing—a lesson painfully instilled in him by his long-suffering father.

But Thorin, whose bravery will be sung for generations to come, steps forward until he is warm and familiar against Bilbo's back, not quite touching but undeniably there. Should Bilbo lose his balance, or rock back onto his heels, or simply breathe in and let his body move, he would find himself against that chest and be swept away.

As if sensing that his proximity is a thing unwanted, Thorin moves away to stand at the wall, large hands pressing to the stone with reverence. "I used to come up to the ramparts often as a lad. Dwarrows are not known for their love of the outdoors—it is within the hearts of the earth where we thrive—but I found solace here. The—The mountain air would clear the stench of gold and sickness and failure from my mind. It was a… balm. A peace I thought I would never know after Erebor's fall. And then… And then you—"

"I have no desire to hear about my failings," Bilbo says, curling into himself miserably. "No matter what has happened, I do not wish our parting words to be spoken in anger."

"I am not here to fight, nor have I come to do you wrong. I have done enough of both to last me a lifetime. I have come to make amends," Thorin says quietly, but the words shake Bilbo to his very core. "But… you said you are leaving. You mean to leave here."

Bilbo gives an inelegant snort. "I seem to recall my welcome being spectacularly withdrawn, and that my punishment for remaining or returning here would be death."

The silence that follows is swollen with guilt, and Thorin pierces it with, "I was not myself."

"That is a poor excuse. You chose a _rock_ over—"

"It is, and I did," Thorin agrees, pained. "And I would ask your forgiveness for my line's weakness. For my weakness. But you… you do not need to leave."

It would not surprise Bilbo if this is the first time Thorin has viewed his past actions without the weight of his kingdom skewing his line of sight. Thorin has been many things and played many roles, but the one he has yet to play is that of Thorin, the dwarf, who comes before the uncle, before the leader, before the king. Bilbo has met him briefly and was quite taken with what he saw.

Bilbo looks up, arrested by the river flowing above this claimed kingdom once more, and has no words that would do justice to any kind of farewell. It is far easier to step back, bow once more before the King Under The Mountain.

"I think I do. Farewell, O King," Bilbo says, and his voice shakes only a little. "I thank you for… for this adventure, and I wish you and your kin nothing but prosperity and happiness."

There is much else to say, but he can do little except turn with wooden movements to depart.

He makes it perhaps four steps before the reply comes.

"The wizard called you a burglar and promised me you were the best of them; it seems he was not wrong. You should not doubt the hands that tried to steal the heart of a king, for they did what they set out to do, and did it well. The grip with which they hold their prize is strong. So, I must know: what else would you ask of me, Bilbo Baggins?"

Bilbo stops, and breathes. And breathes.

"I know I have no right, none at all, to stand before you now and ask your forgiveness for my trespasses against you. At the first test of honor, before the eyes of our friends and my kin, I failed you, and no matter how deeply I wish it, it is not something I can take back. And yet I cannot hold my tongue. While I know I do not deserve it, I cannot let you go without knowing this: if I were to ask you to stay, what would you ask of me in return? Books? A garden? A… a hobbit hole? A kingdom of your own? I would bring you Bag End. I would give you as much fertile land as you could till. I would—I would grant you any wish, would give you anything, if you agreed to stay."

Bilbo stares at the stone and inhales through his nose, exhales out between trembling lips. Inhales, exhales. "A king has no need for a burglar."

"But I have need for the thief who stole my heart."

His eyes burn like dragon fire, and they slide shut. "Thorin—"

"If I cannot… I do not pretend to still have your regard," Thorin's voice grows hoarse, thin, and it pushes at something hard within Bilbo's breast, sand and rock and layers of dead things dissolving under the force of the current. "But I speak with a mind clear of gold and a tongue that knows itself when I say my feelings have not changed."

There is a sound like a dying creature gasping for air, like sobbing, and Bilbo realizes it is himself who is the culprit. He turns. Thorin is a vision best fit for the pages of his mother's old tales, and the hard thing in Bilbo's chest breaks.

_We are each of us but a tiny moment, and then we are gone. Until then, you mustn't stand still—You must learn to move in this world, else you will be nothing but a stone in the next, and the stars will rush past you._

Beneath an ever-moving sky, tears rushing down cheeks desecrated with blood and soil, a king drops to his knees.

"And I would gladly give whatever… whatever I have at my disposal for even the… smallest measurement of you. So, I beg of you…" Thorin whispers. "Ask what you will of me and I will give it. Just do not leave."

 

 _Move_.

 

His feet discover their path before he does, his mind full of stars and the sound of rushing water, and he presses himself against a body that palpably aches with remorse and exhaustion, the toils of a stupid war, but the arms that wrap him up tightly are strong, familiar, and he closes his eyes in relief to know the feel of such an embrace once again. Thorin brings their foreheads together; the air Bilbo breathes is not his own, but sounds like it, trembling and wet.

"I will give you anything." It is murmured into the scant space between their mouths, and Bilbo breathes it in, cool, refreshing, and he has been so parched for it. "Whatever you wish. I would give you power. I would give you my throne."

"I have not asked for it," Bilbo gasps.

"And that is why I would give it," Thorin says, low. "I have failed you, my burglar, and the rest of our days will see me repairing what I broke. So ask—"

They are small but they are strong in their way, these hands that hold the heart of a king, and Bilbo sinks them into dark hair, gripping tight. "All I ask… All I ask is that we learn to move together. We must never stand still, not while we have the power against it in this life. This is what I ask. Tell me you will grant it."

Before Thorin can utter his agreement or refusal, Bilbo turns his gaze skyward.

"Someday, when you are no longer heavy with the weight of the crown, I will take you back to the Shire and we will go into Old Seger's field, and we will look up," Bilbo whispers. "Look up, Thorin," and Thorin shifts against him to do as he's told. "And you will say, 'it looks like a river,' and it will, and the stars will wash us away—from this life into the next."

"Bilbo—"

"I have no contract for you to sign, but this is what I ask. I ask you to move with me in this world, and through all others. We must never stand still. Can you do this for me? You asked for my terms—here they are, bound in starlight and the promise of a future. I ask you not as King Under The Mountain, but as Thorin Oakenshield, who holds my heart in hands meant for wielding swords and building kingdoms. These are my terms. What say you?"

He tears his gaze from the stars with only a modicum of reluctance, and Thorin's proud eyes, the color of storms in which rock giants fight and pools in which rings are found, are crumpled with a wild, heartrending power whose name Bilbo knows well.

"What say you?"

Thorin dips his head, lips trembling around the smile Bilbo thought was lost forever. "You already have my answer."

Bilbo moves, and seals the agreement.


End file.
